


Catalyst

by HippolytaGale



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 16:56:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2475590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HippolytaGale/pseuds/HippolytaGale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yang and Blake have arrived at a delicate point in their partnership; they get along well, but there are feelings underneath that promise a deeper connection, if only either of them were brave enough to go for it. An accident at Beacon may just provide the impetus to shift their friendship into something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

       The Friday before it happened Yang decided that she was going to say it. She had thought about it all through Grimmology, and though asking carried a risk, it was a risk she was willing to take. She followed Blake to the library, sat down across the table, and said,

“I need help.”

Cue eye roll. Cue sigh.

“If you took better notes in class, you wouldn’t panic every time there was a report due.” Blake replied.

“If they talked about Grimm in a way that wasn’t dry and boring and wide-open for distraction, maybe I’d have something to take notes _on_.” Silence. “Look, I know it’s my fault. I’m not asking you to write it for me, just…help me find a place to start?”

Blake snapped her book shut. With a tired glare she pushed a stack of dusty volumes out of the way, and slid her notes over.

“This is the only time I’ll bail you out. Next time you’ll have to try Weiss.”

“You’re the greatest, and the best partner ever, and a goddess, and thank you.”

“Mhmm.”

    Blake made a big show out of acting prickly, but she wasn’t at all once you knew how to read her, Yang thought. She could tell Blake wanted to help her. It was so obvious. Blake’s report was already done, and yet she had come to the library to read rather than their dorm room. In an even more telling clue, she had set out specific books about Grimm migration patterns on the table; unusual, unless you considered that Yang had told her that was her paper topic a few days ago.

    Yang opened the notebook. The pages were clean and detailed, as always, and it was easy to find a few big chunks to inform her thesis statement. She worked fast, completing an outline in her head with the details from a few of the books, plugging in claims and supporting evidence into the holoscreen at the table. In an hour, she had a solid start, but it was _so boring_. She stared slack-jawed at the screen, a tight ache encircling her head. Blake set an apple on the table next to her.

“This isn’t cited correctly.” Blake said, pointing to the screen. Yang groaned.

    All this talk of pheromone trails and flight patterns and magnetic field orientation made a band of pain throb through her temples. She dug the heels of her palms into the sore spots, grinding away at the tension.

“Is everything okay, Yang?”

 “My brain is melting. I don’t know how you and Weiss do this all the time.”

    She pressed her forehead against the table, her fingers laced across the back of her neck. There wasn’t enough time to deal with a tension headache. This stupid paper was due by midnight. She should’ve gotten it done earlier this week. Damn her poor time management. Damn her coffee dates with Ruby and shit-shooting with Nora, damn her obsessive checking of her scroll, damn her—

Blake laid a cool hand on her hair.

“Take a break. I’ll write up the works cited page for you.”

    If it weren’t for the massive headache, she might’ve made an attempt to put on a brave face and say “Oh no, I made my bed, I’ll lie in it,” but that wasn’t going to happen.

“Thank you.”

    The water from the fountain at the other end of the library was cold and satisfying. Yang drank deeply in the hope that the ache would fade from her head, but it didn’t work. She popped her neck, and glanced out one of the wide, arched windows at the sunset. Oranges and pinks were almost submerged under the horizon, with the purples and blues of twilight settling atop them like a blanket. So little progress had been made in an hour. She would probably be here all night, and to make things worse, they had physical training in the morning. Poor Blake. She was kind to stay with her despite all that.

_I should do something nice for her_ , Yang thought. _Something she’ll like. Something fun._ She felt a flicker of excitement.

_It could be a date._

    Not a “date” date, she reminded herself. A friend date. It wasn’t clear if Blake wanted romantic company or not during her time at Beacon (she was hard to read most of the time), but Yang didn’t want to lure her into an awkward situation when she hadn’t sent out any clear signals. If she wasn’t interested, that was fine, but if Yang ever asked her out (and she wanted to, she _really, really_ wanted to) she wanted to be sure Blake was ready. When she asked her for a real date, the timing would have to be just right, the signals at their clearest. She would know when it happened; every so often, Blake looked at her the same way she looked at the stars or the drawings in her notebook, with a kind of lost look. A yearning, perhaps, if Yang was generous with her opinion of herself. When that happened next, she would ask. She promised herself that.

    But who knew when that moment would occur? Maybe it never would. Yang popped her knuckles. The only thing she could do was wait, and hope, and be good to Blake whatever happened. If they stayed friends, so be it. If they became more than that…Well, then she would have to take extra care of her. But in any case, she needed to think of a friendly date to repay her for helping with her paper tonight.

_So, what to do?_

She saw the first star of the evening wink against the purple-black mantle of the sky, and she had an idea.

   
  
  


    It was quiet in the cafeteria that morning, and it was early. The sun had just started to brighten the windows with color when Team RWBY shuffled in to start their day. Saturdays were always hard, especially with the studying Weiss insisted they do or the movies Ruby would always drag them off to the night before; Blake was amazed any of them could function on so little sleep. Staying up with Yang last night made this morning particularly brutal. Still, despite their grumblings, they were all pragmatists—if they did their training this early, that just meant they could relax the rest of the day. Blake was particularly interested in using the time to finish her current book, _Deception Under Nightvale_. It wasn’t her usual romance-in-a-foreign-country fare, but a thriller novel with some particularly risqué chemistry between the two leads; the tension was mounting and she wanted the protagonists to get together at the end, but they were both capable of getting killed off in the chapter she was reading. Best to get this training out of the way now, she thought, so she could find out what happened to them.

    Yang had also asked if she wanted to go into Vale tonight. Any other evening she wouldn’t consider it, not having much interest in the city, but the hunter’s moon was rising tonight, and both of them knew the hill at the southwestern side of the town had the best spot for stargazing. Weiss and Ruby had other plans, but it had been a long time since she had taken the time to look at the night sky under such perfect conditions, and Yang _had_ jokingly offered to bribe her with the next _Bare to You_ paperback…Well, perhaps she would have to consider it after all.

    Sluggish and half-asleep, the team picked out food from the caf’s long counter and found a place to sit. Blake never had much of an appetite in the early morning, preferring an early lunch to offset her hunger, but she forced herself to choose a few hearty items to get her through today: a little sack of pumpkin seeds, a bowl of quinoa and blueberries, a pear and two glasses of water seemed like a good choice. They were going to need it this morning, after all, with Yang taking lead on the itinerary.

“Are you vegetarian, Blake?” Ruby asked, curious. “I never see you eating meat.”

“I’m not,” she said. “But I don’t prefer to eat meat if there’s something else available.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s hard to eat animals when you’re…you know. Um, not that I’m saying you’re just an animal!” She said, flustered. “Of course you’re not an animal, you know what I mea--”

“Ruby, don’t be so insensitive!” Weiss said. “Human or anything else, we should all consider our food when replenishing ourselves. I think Blake makes excellent nutritional choices. You could learn a thing or two, don’t you think?” She said, staring with distaste at Ruby’s bowl of Pumpkin Pete’s cereal.

“C’mon, Weiss, it’s not that bad. It has eleven essential vitamins and minerals!”

“They add those in with a machine, you dolt! It’s not the same!”

    The two bickered until they sat next to each other at the end of a table. Blake paid them no mind and ate her breakfast with one hand, reading her book with the other. After a while, Ruby and Weiss’s words just blended into the background anyway. When she glanced up from the page every so often, she noticed the argument had died down. In fact, Ruby was finishing some kind of joke that elicited a little smirk and giggle from her partner. Weiss Schnee, giggling. If Blake hadn’t watched their relationship improve over the last few years, she wouldn’t believe it. How far they had come.

“Ew, Yang,” Weiss grimaced. “What in the world are you _eating_?”

    Blake looked over as the fourth member of their team jostled the table and sat down next to her. Yang had a tray filled with several bowls of vegetables and fruit, but her main dish looked atrocious. In the center of her tray was a large plate piled high with some kind of white sauce freckled with red powder, spooned over soft lumps of some other kind of food. Yang smashed her fork into the heap, mixing the red spice and white sauce until they turned pink, and the lumps evened out into a sludge. Blake’s lip curled—it reminded her of mashed fish roe, which she had hated eating as a child. Yang beamed at her and Weiss, readying a bite on her fork.

“Don’t be so grossed out, guys. They’re just baked potatoes.”

“Tell me that’s not _all_ sour cream, then.” Weiss said. “If it is, that’s disgusting, and not a wise choice considering our impending physical training this morning.”

Yang laughed, then began to eat. Blake was always impressed by how fast food disappeared down that girl’s mouth; she ate as though she were starving and expected someone to steal her plate away at any moment.

“It’s not sour cream, it’s plain yogurt,” Ruby explained. “She ate that at Signal every PT day.”

“It took them awhile to get the kind I like, but I’m so glad it’s here. Carbs _and_ protein! Low fat, high fiber, lots of probiotics--it’s a perfect workout meal!” Yang said, and took another bite. Half the plate was empty now. Weiss made a face.

“You’re such a meat-head.” She said.

“Hey, I only eat this way because my PT advisor said I needed to to get the most out of my exercises. Before that I didn’t think about what kind of food I ate.”

“And what kind of food was that?”

“Burgers,” Yang shrugged. “Fries.”

“Absolutely disgusting.”

“And the spice?” Blake asked. Her nose was tingling at it. It was something fiery, but sweet; she could feel heat under her skin just from smelling it. “It smells hot.”

“Vacuon chili powder. Good for digestion. Nice sense of smell, kitty cat.” Yang smiled, and nudged her shoulder with her own.

    Blake put her book down, but didn’t shrink away. She was still getting used to her partner’s…exuberant way of showing affection. Most days it was like this, little pats and nudges and a squeeze of a hand here or there, friendly and casual. Sometimes, rarely, it was…more than that. Yang was the kind of person that felt things down to the fiber of her soul, and every so often Blake found herself caught up in that maelstrom with her. Her cheeks flushed at a specific memory, but she had to remember that it was a difficult time after that mission last summer. They had all been shaken, and they all…acted a little unusual. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. Yang liked everyone.

Yang finished the plate of mush, took a long drink of water, and began stuffing her face with carrots. She had a few more bowls of food to go.

“That may be a balanced meal, but that’s a lot of food. Are you going to be okay?” Blake asked. Yang’s eyes narrowed and she smirked.

“Believe me, you’re going to wish you had eaten this much after I’m done with you guys today.”  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

 

    At Beacon, they had combat training and general health classes every day as part of their curriculum. Even with the benefits of using Dust and semblances to augment their fighting, the school maintained a strict policy of physical readiness for all its students. Even stripped of weapons, teachers expected students to be able to defeat the Grimm with just their auras and physical strength, and to prepare for any possibility. After all, a weapon could not help in every circumstance, and who knew when students would need a strong body to survive, so they trained every school day, just like a boot camp in the army. On Saturdays, though, teams were also expected to mix up their usual routine; each member would rotate taking charge of a special, intensive workout-and-training session, which would push their limits and provide an opportunity for them to work on their teamwork. It was a chance for them to see how each of their team-members offered a unique perspective on fighting, and promoted unparalleled physical benefits. Blake just wished she didn’t feel like dying every time.

    It wasn’t so bad when Ruby was in charge. She and Blake had a similar fighting style; acrobatic, fast, and focused on keeping opponents off-balance. She could handle all the agility training Ruby liked to organize, with the suicides and grapevines and box-jumps that made her breathless, and could get through them with some energy, albeit they drained her by the end. On the days that she led, Blake focused on marksmanship, battlefield strategy, and team maneuvers, which she theorized was why everyone else liked them so much, because it didn’t require pushing themselves to the physical breaking point.

    Weiss made them do challenging tasks, but they were a matter of precision rather than heart-rate. Like Weiss herself, all those exercises were about timing and discipline; they practiced footwork and balance, and how to control the distance between yourself and your opponent. She made them do yoga and breathing exercises and bodyweight exercises; all the things that Blake had never given much thought or practice to when she first learned to fight. It was more mentally taxing than anything else, especially with the sheer amount of body awareness it required, but Blake could handle that. She could see the long-term advantages of practicing the skills Weiss incorporated into the training, so she could keep at it.

    Yang’s workouts, though, seemed to lack any kind of higher goal other than to completely beat down the endurance of her teammates. They did weightlifting all morning until they quivered with exhaustion. They used the outside gym too, so they endured all the fury of Vale’s eccentric weather, because Yang didn’t care if they had to do their push-ups in mud. Blake hated Yang’s days the most. She had never been weak-bodied, but she didn’t know what true strength was until she saw Yang deadlift so much weight the bar bent in her grip.

“If the bar ain’t bendin’, you’re just pretendin’!” Yang always said, and would drop it as if it weighed nothing.

    When Yang led PT on Saturdays, it was beyond grueling.  Blake wasn’t sure which part of the morning she hated most—there were the sled sprints, the three-on-one combat drills, the pull-ups, the hang-cleans, the bench-presses, all miserable options—but on her third attempt, she decided that today, she hated the salmon ladder the most.

“C’mon, Blake, you’re almost there! You just have to get the timing!” Yang yelled beneath her.

    She had said that the last few times, too, and yet here Blake was, struggling to make progress. She gasped, trying to maintain her grip on the bar and muster the energy to force it to the next slot. She was only a few notches up, and even those had required Herculean effort, and she didn’t want to be outdone by Ruby and Weiss. Sucking in a deep breath and exhaling, she swung her legs to her chest and pushed the bar up as hard as she could.

“Come on, Blake!” Ruby cheered.

    She almost made it. One end of the bar slid into one of the diagonal slots above her and found purchase there, but she could feel that the other end hadn’t connected. The bar wobbled for a split-second, and then she felt herself falling. Shit.

“Oooof!”

    The fall wasn’t as hard as she had predicted, but that was because Yang had been there to catch her. Yang wrapped her arms around her middle and held onto her until just after they hit the ground, dissipating the worst of the impact with one of her martial-art falls. They laid there for a moment, Yang’s hand pressed against Blake’s fluttering stomach, Blake boiling with frustration.

“Are you okay?” Ruby asked.

“I’m fine,” Blake snapped. She shifted under Yang’s hands. “I’m fine.”

“Take a break, guys.” Yang said. “We need a minute.”

“Ruby, come with me,” Weiss said, pulling at the hood of the girl’s sweat-shirt. The two took the group’s water bottles and left to fill them up at the quad’s fountain. Blake stood up and paced. She wished her fingers would stop shaking. Yang hadn’t moved. She was still stretched out on the ground, following her friend with her eyes.

“You’re almost there, Blake. The timing’s tricky for you, but you just need to tuck your legs up a little higher before you try to move the bar.”

“I know.” She said. Her hands clenched and unclenched into fists. “I know.”

“This is the hardest exercise we do. You’re doing great. I can tell you’re doing your best.”

“Yang, even _Weiss_ can get halfway up the ladder. I can’t even finish the first third.”

“But you’re getting there, and that’s what counts. I believe in you. I know you can do it. Don’t let that little worrier in the back of your head tell you you’re in a bad place—you’re exactly where you need to be right now.”

“Easy for you to say. You could do this in your sleep.”

“Only because I’ve been doing this since I was thirteen. I was more of a shrimp than Weiss when I started, but look at me now.” She flexed a bicep and grinned. “Ooh, yeah, look at this gun! I didn’t think guns this big were even legal! Pow! Look at this one over here!” Blake rolled her eyes, but despite her best efforts it coaxed a smile out of her. Yang was so silly. She always had that devil-may-care grin on her face.

“Thank you, Yang.”

“No problem. Hang in there, we’re almost done. I’ll change it up, I promise.” She said.

    When Weiss and Ruby got back and they finished their break, they walked down the cliffside to the port at the bottom of the academy. They walked past the jetty and the boats bringing in supplies until they were at one end of the shore, when the sand transitioned into rocks. From here, the people walking on the pier looked short, and Blake could hardly hear any noise from the work they were doing even with her enhanced hearing. The river’s mouth rippled with waves, and although there was no sunshine reflecting off the water from the overcast skies it was still a pleasant view. Even the breeze seemed more vibrant next to the water’s edge. Yang told Ruby and Weiss to jog to the other end of the shore and back (“No semblances, Ruby! It’s a cool-down!”), and then they would switch.

“What are we going to do?” Blake asked, exhaustion sapping away at her spine. Ember Celica dropped to the sand. Yang pulled off her t-shirt and tennis shoes, standing in her bra and her athletic shorts. Blake felt a surge of heat flush to her face.

“Why are you taking off your clothes!?”

Yang popped her knuckles.

“We’re going to spar. No weapons, no tricks, just skin-on-skin. Me and you.”

“Are you seriously going to have me try to fight you hand-to-hand?”

“It’s light sparring! I’ll go easy on you.”

“And why do you have to take off your clothes?”

“Because I’m hot,” she winked, catching the flare of recognition in Blake’s eyes, “And the temperature’s pretty high today, too.”  
  
Cheeky.

    Sparring with Yang was the best thing she had done today, though. It was relaxing, in its own strange way; the soft gray sky and the lapping of the river water, the way the sand sunk underneath her now-bare toes as they moved, swatting at each other with light strikes and deflections, it all felt so detached from the world at large. They didn’t talk to each other as they trained, finding a syncopated rhythm that changed at a moment’s notice, and yet they never missed a beat.

 _This is why we’re partners,_ Blake thought.

    Even without speaking, they could read each other so well. On the battlefield, it only took a snap of the head or a quick glance to the other before they could engage and take down an opponent. Yang was the direct line of attack: she was a merciless, explosive pressure to an enemy’s center line, leaving no time for the enemy to react. Blake was the support, backup, and backstabber—she hung on the edges and pierced from shadows and angles unforeseen, versatile and unpredictable in her lethality. She could herd groups of Grimm in a way Yang never could, so she set them up, and Yang knocked them down, and if there was ever any trouble, they had each other’s back.

    Their team on the whole was the same—Blake ventured that they had the strongest teamwork of their class, especially with how unevenly planned Jaune’s coordination of Team JNPR’s tactics were sometimes. It hadn’t been easy, but everyone in RWBY was knit together into one strong, unified group. Now that they had been together for two full years, even Weiss and Ruby, the two most opposite people in the school, could finish each other’s sentences and list each other’s secret hobbies if they desired.

    Blake didn’t have quite that kind of relationship with Yang, of course; they built their partnership on unspoken affection as much as on professional support, and her partner’s way of speaking with her body as well as her mouth was unsteadying as much as it was earnest. Still, she couldn’t deny that they clicked. Blake really, _really_ liked working with her—as much as she had liked Adam when they first started fighting together in the White Fang. More in fact, because, while Yang was rough around the edges, she was honest with her feelings. Blake had trouble articulating what she felt, but a blunt word from Yang could usually bridge the gap. On paper, they shouldn’t have a lot in common, but somehow everything worked.

Maybe it was _because_ they had little in common that they complimented each other so well, she thought. Serious with happy-go-lucky, light with dark, cool-headed with—

    Damn it, she wasn’t paying attention. It was too late to parry away the hand on her hip or the hand on her shoulder: Yang grappled her during her absent-mindedness, and with a step and a twist of her hips, she forced Blake off-balance, driving her down into the soft shore. The other woman dropped to one knee and drove a fist into the sand next to Blake’s head.

“BAM! Knock out!” Yang grinned. There was a pause as Blake recovered, gasping with the shock of her abrupt defeat. Yang tapped a finger to her partner’s cheekbone.

“You okay?” She asked.

“You didn’t break me.”

“Good,” She said, her smile softening. The muted sunlight in her hair gave her a glow that was brilliant to look at. She palmed sand away from her partner’s face, holding her cheek for just a moment longer than what she considered polite. “You’re too pretty to break.”

Blake didn’t know quite what to make of that; Yang could be flirtatious as easily as she could be sincere.

    After Yang threw her to the ground for the second time that afternoon, they stopped to rest. Blake crawled on top of a boulder next to the cliff-face and sat. Yang picked up a stick and tried to throw it upright into the sand, picking it up and trying again when she failed. Minutes passed in silence. Then, Yang threw flat rocks into the water, sinking them one after another.

“Goddammit.” She said.

“Haven’t you ever skipped a stone before, Yang?”

“Am I that bad?”

“Here.”

Blake hopped off the boulder and took a few stones from the sand. She stood next to Yang, pinching one of the rocks between her thumb and forefinger.

“You have to flick it, like this.” The stone skimmed across the water. “Think across, not down.”

“God, you’d think living on an island for most of my life, my skipping-stones skill would be up to par.”

“Maybe you’re just bad at it.”

“Ouch! Right in the heart!” She said, but smiled.

    Yang sank every stone she threw. After a while she ran out of rocks (“I guess it’s a hard rock life,” she snickered), and they sat down on the sand next to each other, waiting for their team-mates. She passed Gambol Shroud over from where Blake had left it on the ground, then clicked her own weapon onto her wrists. The sun kept rising into the sky.

“What’s taking Ruby and Weiss so long?” Blake finally asked. Yang shrugged.

“Who knows? Ruby gets distracted all the time. She might’ve run off, and Weiss is trying to catch up.” She hurled a stone the size of a brick into the cliff wall, watching it shatter across the sand. “Want to go swimming?”

    Blake shook her head. The idea of stripping down further in front of Yang…unnerved her, in some way. Not in a bad way, just in a strange-but-pleasant, I-don’t-want-you-to-see-me-but-then-again-I-don’t-mind-if-you-do way. She got that unsettled feeling about Yang a lot these days.

    It happened when she saw her sprinting down the hall to get to class (although she was already late), blonde hair streaming out like a comet’s fiery tail, grinning like an idiot; it happened when she stayed up all night with Yang to cram for a test, too much black coffee passed between them, all productive thoughts derailed by peppermint candies and bad puns, both of them bleary-eyed and jittery in the morning but happy about the wasted hours with each other all the same; it happened when she read under the tree outside their window, her partner resting (dead to the world) in the shade, wondering for a split second if she should put down the book and enjoy how Yang twitched in her sleep like a dog; it happened when Yang asked to go with her to the bookstore, not because she wanted to buy a book, but because she wanted to see which one Blake would bury her nose in next. Even now, when Blake glanced at her, a warmth like slow, sweet molasses pooled in her stomach, rolling with a longing she wasn’t ready to name.

“What is it?” Yang asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

She brushed the sand off her sweaty athletic clothes and crouched in the shade of the boulder nearby.

    Bored, her partner picked up a larger stone and sent that one against the cliff, this time shooting it with Ember Celica as it connected with the wall. The stone was pulverized, and left a deep pockmark in the cliff. Yang fired off a few more rounds, making a smiley face out of bullet holes.

“Maybe they went home early.”

“Guess I have you all to myself, then.” Yang said. There was a long silence; she toed the sand with one foot, raking a hand through her hair, expression almost neutral.

“So…I’ve been thinking lately. We’ve known each other for a long time, haven’t we? I’m… not sure if this is out of line or not, but I think I would like to—”

    Blake’s ears twitched under her bow. She heard a strange noise behind her, just now. She looked over her shoulder at the solid wall of rock behind her back. All of a sudden, the noise grew, echoing from under the sheer cliff.

“What’s wrong?” Yang asked.

It was…some kind of squeaking sound. Like a rusty wheel, and it was getting louder.  Blake scanned the entire rock face, but didn’t see any movement.

“I…don’t know.”

    There, at the top of the cliff—she saw a gash in the stone, no more than two feet apart, dark even with the late morning sun shining on it. The edges of the gash trembled and crumbled under some kind of intense pressure underneath, sending bits of rocks breaking off down the cliff. Her hearing triangulated the sound with the echoes all around her. The wall rumbled so deep she could feel the vibration under her bare feet. She had an idea of what the noise was now, but she never would have imagined they could be so close to the school without anyone knowing.

“Yang, we need to go!”

“Wh—”

    The Grimm swarmed out of the crack in the stone like ink from a spilled pot. In the forest, Vespertilios would never roost this close to a human structure—Blake had only seen them once during her time in the wild. Their eyes were as red now as at night, but their size was more intimidating in the daytime. Each one was about two feet wide from wingtip to wingtip, and seeing the Grimm form a black cloud of beating wings against the sky seized Blake’s heart in her chest. She whipped her hand to her shoulder, trying to unsheathe Gambol Shroud in time to swipe the monster coming right for her face, but her hand seemed so slow against that blur of motion—

    The shotgun shell whizzed past her ear like a wasp. The buckshot opened the Vespertilio’s chest with a mist of pink, the creature’s mouth (and six sets of needle-sharp teeth) gasping for air, and it fell lifeless against the boulder. Yang dashed next to her partner, crouching on one knee and sending out shell after shell in a fury towards the giant mass of Grimm diving at them. Blake whipped her weapon in a wide circle over their heads, like the blade of a helicopter; between Gambol Shroud and the boulder against their backs, none of the monsters should get through to attack them this pass. The colony split against her weapon like a stream against a rock; they angled out, flapping hard, the ones not fast enough to turn getting cut into bloody chunks by her chain scythe, the ones lucky enough to avoid it wheeling away for another pass. They skyrocketed up the side of the cliff. Blake heard a new, different type of round chamber in Ember Celica—Yang reached back to fire. If she missed and hit the rock face, with how unstable it was from the sheer force of the Grimm coming out—

“Don’t!”

     As soon as their wrists connected, Blake knew she had made a mistake. Unimpeded, Yang might have hit the main cluster of Vespertilios without further destabilizing the rock, but when Blake moved her hand, the explosive shell hit the cliff-face instead. A huge chunk of debris broke and fell towards them, shrapnel and dust flying. The Vespertilios were everywhere. How did they move so fast? They were on the both of them now, teeth sawing away at their auras, wings beating against their faces. Blake knew they couldn’t last against this assault; they were too tired from their training, and completely overwhelmed. Panic chilled her stomach. How close was the rock that was falling? The earth reverberated with the sound of boulder crashing against boulder. She had to act, she had to get them both out of there—

“Move!” Yang yelled, and pushed her hard.

    Blake stumbled in the sand, losing her grip on her weapon as she careened out of control. She couldn’t tell if she had screamed, of if Yang had; it was moving too fast, it was too hard to see; teeth drew blood from her face, her neck, her fingers—she fell to the ground with the impact of the rock onto the shore. She crawled for a few fast seconds, then curled up, trying to protect her throat and eyes and ears, hoping she could catch a glance at her weapon and turn this fight around somehow—

    But then heat blistered in the space above her back. The needling pain there cut off, and she felt every mouth of each Vespertilio attacking her detach one by one from her sore and bleeding body. Her vision was blurry, but she couldn’t mistake the arctic white toe of Weiss’s tennis shoe next to her head. Weiss launched a few more bursts of fire from Myrtenaster, scorching a zone free of Grimm.

“We’re here, don’t worry!” She said. Jaune Arc stood next to her, dialing for help on his scroll in a frenzy.

    When Blake moved, her every wound wept. The sand had turned into blood-soaked paste underneath her body. Looking over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of Ruby spinning with Crescent Rose like a razored top through the Vespertilios. Lie Ren and Nora shot and hammered from the peripheries, trying to down as many monsters as they could, and Pyrrha was a scarlet-and-copper blur cutting through the center of the Grimm. It took only a minute for the creatures to retreat back into the rift, where Weiss sealed it with ice, coating it over like a scab. Blake rolled onto her back. She tried to get up, but she felt as though her skin would scrape off if she moved any further; she couldn’t even lift her head without help.

“Don’t move! You’re hurt!” Weiss took her hand. Blake felt as if her throat would crack.

“Yang.” She groaned. “Yang needs help.”

“It’s okay,” Weiss started, but then they heard the scream. Horror swept across her friend’s face. Her grip tightened.

“Don’t look, Blake.”

“Please,” she whimpered.

“Jaune, help me!” Weiss ordered. He snapped his scroll shut, and together they sat her up, cradling her between them like two parents and their child posing for a family photo. Even with them beside her, it was all she could do not to collapse when she saw.

    The first thing she noticed was her partner’s face. To her horror, Blake saw that the Grimm had torn a deep gash open under the corner of Yang’s mouth, and a huge bite on her brow swelled up one of her eyes. There were too many marks to count, but those paled to the greater danger at present.

    Blake had only seen Yang’s semblance pushed to its limit once before, and that was during that mission in Atlas they were all lucky to be alive after. Now, with the massive piece of debris pinning Yang’s body just above her knees, it was only a matter of time before its weight and gravity would overcome her strength and crush her completely. Her eyes were ablaze and every muscle and tendon of her arms stood out as she tried to hold back the stone from further rolling on top of her, but she trembled with the effort—if she kept it up, her body might tear itself apart even while trying to survive. Ren knelt and put his hand on her forehead.

“Breathe,” he said. “We’re going to get this off you, but you have to stay calm.”

    Pyrrha charged hard into the stone, throwing her weight into it. Ren and Ruby pushed on the other side, trying to balance it so it would roll off of her evenly. Drops of sweat and blood rolled down Yang’s face, her teeth gritted in agony.

“Nora, see if you can use Magnhild to lever it out; I think it’s stuck in the sand.” Jaune said.

“On it!”

Nora wedged the back end of her hammer under the boulder and gave it a hard kick.

“Okay!” She said. “One, two…THREE!”

    All the students groaned with one mighty, collective push. At first, it seemed like a wasted effort, but then the rock began to shift, inch by inch, until it cleared Yang’s feet. Ruby bolted to pull her sister further away until she was clear of any further danger, and from her vantage point Blake’s heart sank as she saw the bright ribbons of exposed muscle and jagged bone.

Yang’s legs were burst open from the mid-thigh down, smashed and useless.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Where’s Blake?”

“She’s going into shock. Jaune, your shirt—”

“Is Blake okay?”

“She’s right here, Sis, she’s going to be fine.”

“Hold her hand, Ruby. Jaune, the ambulance—”

“They’re coming, they said five minutes tops.”

“Nora, get this wrapped around here, the blood isn’t stopping—”

“I’m trying!”

“Weiss, can you put ice on the wounds? We have to keep her injuries cold, or what’s left of her legs might not be able to recover.”

“Yes!”

“Yang, you have to stay awake! Do you hear me? You have to stay awake!”

“Pyrrha, I—”

“Don’t talk, just stay still and listen to me. Put your sweatshirt over her, Ruby. We need to keep the rest of her warm.”

    It was all happening so fast. Blake watched her friends applying pressure over what was left of Yang’s legs. She felt dizzy from all the blood loss, but Ren’s arm around her kept her from collapsing; a pity, because she wished she could pass out. Then she wouldn’t have to see her friend suffering so much. No, she thought, that was selfish. Her friend was in danger, dying for all she knew. Her chest clenched. She wanted to get up, to hold Yang’s hand like Ruby was, but her body wouldn’t respond. She was so useless. Ren squeezed her shoulder.

“She’s going to be okay, Blake.”

    Klaxons rang out across the river-mouth. An airship raced over the water and set down onshore, men in white jumpsuits leaping from the bay doors. They brought gurneys out, pushed her team-mates aside, took vitals—it was quick and clinical, terrifying in its cool efficiency. The men carried Yang into the ship, and one of them returned for Blake. They sat her down next to the gurney, strapping her in before checking with the pilot for takeoff. Ruby and Weiss both tried to go with them, but the ambulance staff refused. Before the bay door slammed, Weiss hollered,

“We’ll meet you there!”

    The ride took minutes, but Blake must have blacked out from exhaustion. The staff took Yang, delirious with pain, from her in a flurry of white coats and medical jargon, and the remaining EMT took her to the Emergency Room for her own injuries. Once she laid down on the examination table, she passed out again, woken only by the nurse and doctor as they sat down to begin stitching and stapling the larger lacerations on her extremities. There were so many wounds to be closed, the nurse gave her a morphine injection—it dulled the room into a soft, murmuring smear. The doctor’s work took hours, but afterwards they moved her to a medical bed, and she was just cogent enough to ask for a hand mirror to look at herself.

    She had sustained more injuries than she thought. The doctor told her she had received a total of twenty-eight stiches and staples across her body, and those were only for the most serious bites. There were lacerations all over her back, legs, neck, and arms; her thick bow, once removed, revealed bites that had razored her delicate feline ears. They wrapped her hands in sterile gauze and started applying ice packs to her swelling injuries. She was covered in splotchy bruises the same lavender color as Yang’s eyes.

Yang. Oh god. Through the blunt haze of her painkillers, tears burned in the corners of her vision.

“Is Yang going to die?” She asked the nurse. He coughed, then rubbed the back of his neck.

“Are you her family?”

“No, but please, I have to know. I…She’s my…” The words wanting to come out—no, she couldn’t say them. She couldn’t speak through the lump in her throat.  “She’s my best friend.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t disclose that kind of information to people who aren’t family members.” He said, and walked out.

    Blake sank into the mattress on her ripped-up back and waited for Ruby and Weiss. She tried not to think about the woman who, only a few hours before, had pressed a hand to her cheek and called her pretty. The morphine blurred her senses; it was as if she was in stasis somewhere along the umbilical cord of sleep, half awake and half dreaming. At first, she thought Ruby wasn’t there, (Why would she be in her room rather than her sister’s?) but when she heard Ruby’s sniffling, it had the weight of real sound. Ruby’s eyelids were swollen from crying, but she made little noise. Blake sat up. Her mouth was arid, but she winced reaching for the glass of water next to her. Ruby passed it to her mouth—the water was cool, but it didn’t soothe the rawness of her throat.

“What time is it?” She asked.

“Five-ish. You were asleep for a long time.”

“Yang?”

    Just the mention of her sister’s name looked like it would bring Ruby to tears again. She withdrew into herself, just a normal sixteen-year old girl in clothes a little too big for her.

“She’s….lost a lot of blood. Weiss is donating some now—we don’t have the same blood type, even though we’re sisters—we shouldn’t worry, but…”

“…But?”

Ruby hid her face in her hands, mouth trembling.

“They might…they might have to amputate her legs.”

    Oh god. Because of the chance of infection from the Grimm, because of the blood loss, tissue death, necrosis in the nerves—because Yang’s knees were in all likelihood pulverized to dust because she had pushed Blake out of the way of that stupid rock, because Blake didn’t trust her aim, because she didn’t think, because—

“Blake?”

—Because she didn’t want Yang to get hurt and she panicked, because Yang was always making her chest ache and she wasn’t ready to understand why, because Yang was her friend and her teammate and something beyond special, like a geode or a jar full of fireflies—

“Snap out of it, Blake!”         

Ruby put a hand over Blake’s mouth and pinched one of her nostrils shut, like she did when Weiss was too anxious about her grades. Bit by bit, each breath stretched and swelled, and her heart stopped hammering. Ruby continued.

“They don’t know if they’ll need to, it’s just a possibility—I was going to say that before you got upset—but even if they don’t amputate they have to do surgery anyway. Weiss can tell you later, I don’t understand most of it.”

“It’s okay, Ruby. I…the most important thing is that Yang’s alive. When will we be able to see her?”

“Tomorrow night, if everything goes well. We have to wait and see.”  
  
  


 

    They did see Yang the next night, but she wasn’t awake yet. The staff at the hospital said she had been given heavy painkillers, so she was knocked out the entire time they were there, which was just as well, because Blake wasn’t sure if she would even have the strength to look at her. Yang was wrapped up tight in gauze and temporary braces and ice packs, like the world’s least-matched spacesuit; to see this woman—who was so strong, so full of passion and love and _life_ —to see her broken like this was more than Blake could bear.

They had to bandage her partner’s face almost completely because of the bite wounds, but a curl of blonde peeked out over her right ear. Ruby sighed when she saw that.

“Never could keep this mane down.”

    The three conscious members of Team RWBY sat in the chairs around Yang’s bed for an hour or two, but they didn’t talk too much, just looked at each other and the woman in the bed. Blake thought about what Yang had said before the Grimm attacked.

_I’m… not sure if this is out of line or not, but I think I would like to—_

_To what?_ Blake wondered. _What would you like to do, Yang?_ She turned the thought over in her mind.

After visiting hours ended, Weiss put a hand on Blake’s arm, cool and friendly.

“Come home tonight.” She said. “Ruby’s staying with her.” Blake couldn’t resist, tired and pain-addled as she still was.

    Weiss was maternal in times like these. On their way home, she was conscious of keeping Blake comfortable, making sure she wasn’t in pain and giving her lots of fluids. After the airship ride to Beacon, they were back in their room for only a moment before she started fussing with Blake’s bed, fluffing the pillow and smoothing out blankets. She helped Blake sit, letting her change clothes while she prepped her medication. She opened the window to let in the cool night air, and after Blake was settled in bed she asked, “Is there anything else you need?”

“No, thank you.”

Weiss turned off the lights and sat at her desk, only the small glow of her lamp spilling across its surface. She opened a book, and started working on a stack of papers about an inch thick.

“What’s that?” Blake asked.

“It’s the group project that we were supposed to have done for Port on Tuesday. I’m doing it now, so none of you have to worry about it later. Port will never know the difference.”

    Of course Weiss would be the only person who would even think about homework during a crisis, she thought, but she was strangely touched, too. She dozed to the sound of Weiss’s scratching pen, broken only by the other girl’s occasional yawn. Blake dipped in and out of sleep, like she had at the hospital the night before, part dreamless, part too-real. In one of the formless blacks of rest, she jerked awake, Yang’s name waiting un-cried in her throat. Weiss started and froze, like a deer.

“I’m fine,” Blake said. Weiss relaxed.

“Bad dream?”

“Yes.”

“Understandable.” Blake remembered a flash of her dream, Yang’s face torn open, and felt her heart leap against her ribs.

“I have to find a way to make this right. It’s all my fault.”

“Blake Belladonna, I will not have you blaming yourself the day after you get out of the hospital. You are not going to tear yourself up on my watch. Ruby would never forgive me, and neither would Yang.”

“But it’s my fault Yang’s in there in the first place! It’s my fault she’s hurt! If I hadn’t—”

“You’re my friend, but I will not hesitate to force-feed you these sedatives until tomorrow morning.” She sighed. “Look, I know you feel like you’re to blame for what happened, but you aren’t. We’re Huntresses. We knew there was a chance we could get hurt in the line of duty. Yang got hurt because she wanted to protect her partner, and you know she would do it again in a heartbeat. It’s not your fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault. Talk to her tomorrow, you’ll see.”

“If she wakes up tomorrow.”

“She will.” Weiss said. “I can feel it.”

   
  
  


    Yang had in fact woken up that same night, as Blake and Weiss returned home; Ruby had fallen asleep in the chair next to the bed, her cloak cocooned around her to ward off the excessive chill of the air conditioning, when her sister’s one uncovered eye lifted open.

    There were precious few moments of lucidity today. Whenever the painkillers had taken their oppressive foot off Yang’s brain she had always been alone in the room, her flashes of consciousness brief and unfocused. It was dark, and the last time she had been awake had been sometime this morning, just after the sun had rolled across the horizon—still, she was tired. She had never been this tired in her life.

    The first thing Yang felt was how sore she was: it was like an elephant decided to tap dance over her skeleton. Her face felt as responsive as a wooden mask, and a quick glance at the legion of deep, razor-thin punctures sealed with medical adhesive seemed to match with her last clear memories of what had happened. She remembered pushing Blake out of the way of the incoming debris, and remembered her femurs snapping as the rock crushed them. After that the only thing she could remember was her semblance only just supplying the strength to keep the rock from further rolling on her, and the Vespertilios biting her face at every opportunity. She touched the stitches woven across the right side of her chin like a bloody boot and sighed. Why did they always have to go for either her face or her hair?

    She looked now at her brace-entrapped legs and winced. Yang knew how the human body worked; she knew how bad her injuries were. If she lost her legs, it would tear open a wound in her heart that doctors and time could never heal. She knew that in her blood and her bones. Even if the doctors made her prosthetics, or gave her combat-ready cybernetic legs to replace the ones they might have to amputate, it would never be the same: the jogs in the forest would change, the jumping on her mattress to annoy Weiss for working too hard, the way she stepped on the dance floor in time to the rhythm—it would never be good enough. Even if she got to keep her legs, even if she went through physical therapy, they would never be the same. She might not ever get the full use of them back. She might just be crippled for life.

_Please don’t let that happen_ , she thought to no one in particular. But in truth, it was out of her hands. She was alive, at least, and that was something. The rest was up to chance and the skill of the medical staff.

Ruby snored next to her. Yang would’ve smiled, but the stiches at the corner of her mouth were persuasive against it—she would have that scar for the rest of her life.

_Could be worse_ , she thought, _At least scars are great conversation pieces._

And, to be fair, it was going to happen sooner or later with her fighting style. Blake always said—Yang’s breath felt like a knife slicing into her. Blake.

    Wait, no; Blake was fine. When they pulled her out from under the boulder, Yang saw that her partner had blood all over her, and a lot of cuts, but she was fine compared to herself. She knew that, but she wouldn’t know it for real until she could put her hands on her—the touch connection had to be there, or she would be afraid that her friend would vanish the way things do in dreams, never to be seen again. She needed to see Blake so badly.

    And damn it, she had been so close to asking her out. What were the fucking chances that the _one time_ they were alone with each other and there was enough sexual tension to cut with a knife, a bunch of monsters would throw a wrench into her one earnest, hesitant attempt to tell Blake Belladonna how she felt? Unbelievable. The forces of the universe must have felt like fucking her over.

    And it would have been _so perfect_. Blake had been staring at her all morning (as if she didn’t think Yang would notice) with her face scrunched into that frown that put creases between her eyebrows and the whole time they were together there had been this stillness between them, this _heat_ —Yang could feel it radiating out from the both of them, touching and yet not quite intertwining, like two palms pressed together, a heartbeat shared between both. It made her anxious, and she was _never_ anxious (embarrassment didn’t factor into anything she did) unless she was with her. It felt like the right time to ask.

    She wanted to press their hands together the way she did sometimes with her own hands, late at night after the others had gone to bed. She matched them, folding the fingers over each set of knuckles, and thought of Blake’s cool skin warming to her touch. It had been a secret she had hidden away for herself, taken out only in the odd moments she could spare, but perhaps now she should experience it sooner rather than later. Near-death experiences demanded a more urgent need to live one’s life, after all. At the same time, Yang still didn’t want to rush anything, or risk scaring her friend away. Like before, she would feel when the time was right. Trust was a limited commodity with Blake, to be mined and hoarded like diamonds, though far more precious than some mundane jewel.

    Once, Yang had felt that trust with as much ease as she could feel oxygen in her lungs. When they got back from that mission in Atlas (the one where they had all almost died, were it not for a few moments of brilliant strategy), neither of them could sleep; nor did they particularly want to, with the nightmares that were sure to greet them. So Yang did what she always did whenever she was upset—she hit things. If Ruby was awake, maybe she would have made cookies with her instead (the way Summer always did), but the gymnasium called to her that night. It was clear in her memory: the broken moon high in the sky, beaming through the window, the combat room empty, black, and silent save for her flesh slamming into the heavy bag with a desperation that surprised even her.

    Who knew how long Blake had been watching her that night before making her presence known; she was interchangeable with the shadows she moved within, quiet like the flap of an owl’s wing. Only a slight shift of her head gave her away—Yang could see the gold shimmer of moonlight reflecting off of her cat eyes in the darkness.

“Gah!” Yang started.

“I’m sorry,” Blake said.

“No, no, it’s fine. You just…scared the shit out of me for a second.”

Blake sat with her knees pressed to her chest, curled into a tight ball. She looked at the punching bag, then at her partner.

“How long have you been down here?” She asked.

“Long enough to work up a sweat. Not long enough to feel tired, though.”

“Mhmm.”

“You can’t sleep either?”

“I….no.” She said.

    Yang punched the bag one last time, then sat down next to Blake. Minutes passed, but neither of them spoke. She stretched out her legs and pressed her palms against her eyes, trying not to remember the gunshots, and the Grimm, and the _pain_ —

    A cool hand touched her arm. She tried to focus on the deep chill of Blake’s skin touching her own, not on recalling the red eyes or the sharp feather flechettes grazing her hip. Her hands curled into fists.

“None of this feels like it’s real.” She said. “I’m afraid I’m going to open my eyes and you’ll be gone.”

“We’re not there anymore, Yang. The mission is done. We’re home.”

A pause; the cold hand slid around to her back, Blake’s chin tucked into her shoulder, hesitant and comforting.

“You could have died, Blake. We all could have died, and no one would’ve known what happened to us.”

“But we didn’t. We all made it, and it wouldn’t have happened without you.”

“I know.” It felt like if she clenched any harder, the bones in her fists would splinter apart. “I know that, but I can’t lose anyone. I can’t lose any of you, and I almost did.” She turned to her partner. “I risked all our lives and it’s a miracle any of us are here right now.”

“You’re the only reason that Ruby is alive, Yang. You saved her, and me.”

“If my semblance had given out a second earlier—”

“It didn’t, though.”

“But I—look, just promise me you’ll never be as stupid as I am, okay?”

“Already done,” Blake said, a hint of teasing in her voice, and it almost granted levity to their conversation.

    It was instinctual, like Yang couldn’t help it; she had to make sure this wasn’t a dream—that, with her, right now, they were both back at Beacon and not rotting away in that ice cave. She had to take Blake into her arms, her face buried in the crook of the other girl’s neck, breathing in that smell of old books and extinguished candles she loved so much, both of them now sprawled out across the hard gym floor. She had to feel Blake’s heart beating against hers and the swell of breath shared through their chests. Her fingers clenched a handful of hair at the nape of the other girl’s neck, her other arm coiled around the small of her friend’s back, their legs tangled together against the cold hardwood. She felt Blake’s cheek warm against her temple.

“Y-Yang?” Blake asked.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s weird, I…I just need to know you’re really here.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m not going to leave you.”

    Blake circled a hand across her back in smooth, even strokes, taking a little of the anxiety away with every pass. Yang expected her to pull away, to put a buffer of space between their cheeks now pressed together; instead, Blake’s free hand carded through her hair and pulled her closer. She hitched one leg over Yang’s hip. Yang filed that movement away in a corner of her memory; in any other situation, she would’ve found the manner of their embrace quite erotic. In that moment though, all she knew was that she was in love with the woman in her arms. She had _been_ in love with her, and hadn’t noticed. Blake whispered into her ear.

“You’re okay. I have you. Rest here for now.” She said, and without meaning to they slept that way in the gym until morning.

    Yang looked out of her hospital window at the red hunter’s moon beaming against her bandages. She reached out to it, wishing she could make that connection across all this distance, wishing she could fold herself into Blake and fall into trouble-less sleep like she did so long ago.

“Hurry back,” She whispered. “I miss you.”  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

 

Ruby gave the strongest hugs. She was like an octopus that that loved too much.

“You’re breaking my ribs!” Yang wheezed.

“Sorry, Sis!”

    That morning, as the nurse unwound the bandages on Yang’s face and hands, Ruby told her about what had happened while she was asleep. Team JNPR, Professor Ozpin, and Professor Goodwitch had all visited the afternoon before and sent their well-wishes for her recovery. Weiss was supposed to be there later that morning to stay with Yang while Ruby went back to Beacon to take care of Blake, and they were going to make a plan on how best to handle school in the meantime. Ruby knew Yang wouldn’t plan on dropping out, amputee or no amputee, so they were going to have to make some decisions about how to make progress without falling behind. As her sister detailed all the avenues her and Weiss had discussed yesterday, Yang colored herself impressed.

“Good leadership, Rubes.”

“The only think we want you to think about is getting better.” She said.

    When the doctors began their morning rounds, they were happy to see the aura therapy fast at work on repairing some of the damage, but they had to deliver other news as well. The good news was that the combination of the quick first-aid at the site of the accident and the treatment at the hospital made it possible for Yang to keep both of her legs. The less-than-ideal news was that she was going to have to have both knees replaced by cybernetics, and the bones of her legs would have to have several pieces of orthopedic hardware installed for the greatest chance of recovery. She wouldn’t be fit for strenuous activity for twelve weeks, and she wouldn’t be combat-ready for another month after that, but afterwards she should have most of her functionality back.

    The dark tunnel worming through the back of her mind opened up, and all she saw was light. For a second, Yang felt tears of joy prick at the corners of her eyes; she would never be quite the power-lifter and jump-kick brawler she was once, but she could still be a Huntress. She could still fight and run and dance, just in a different way than before. If Ruby hadn’t been sniffling with happiness beside her, she might have broken down herself, but instead, she felt only the pure elation of beating the odds.

“I’m going to get so fat!” Yang laughed as the doctor left.

“Maybe, but Weiss always says you should work on your grades anyway.” Blake murmured from the doorway.

    Yang thought she had been happy the moment before she saw her, but she knew that couldn’t have been the case, because now she felt like champagne bubbling over the lip of a glass. Ruby stood and moved aside, letting Blake walk to the edge of the bed.

“Oh! Hey! Where’s Weiss? I thought I was going to be with you at Beacon today.” Ruby said.

“She had a long night, so I slipped out while she was sleeping.”

“Well, that Weiss, she’s always the one to push herself. I—” Ruby glanced between her sister and her friend. “I bet you want to talk. You must have a lot of stuff to talk about, and you haven’t gotten the chance, so I’m just going to be out in the hallway. You know, if you need me?”

“Sure.”

    Ruby closed the door behind her and Yang waited. It was silent. Minutes passed. Blake’s face was covered in bruises, lacerations still raw and red, but in a few days her aura would heal them. Blake stared at her, eyes like amber waves, strong and full, deep with something she couldn’t see beyond the surface. It was too much for Yang; the joy singing behind her ribs and the look in Blake’s eyes made her want to leap off the bed and—

“How are you?” Blake asked.

“I’m not dead, so I’d say I’m peachy.” She chortled. “A pretty bruised peach, but peachy.”

Blake didn’t laugh. Her eyes were hard and shining. She covered Yang’s hand with her own, her squeeze hard and sorrowful.

 “I’m sorry,” She said. Her voice was sharp with emotion. “Yang, I’m so sorry.”

    Her first instinct was to smile, to put her at ease; she wanted to tell her the good news and tell her everything was going to be okay. It was, after all. She had been so lucky. But Blake was holding her hand too hard for that. It felt like she would never let her go. Yang turned their hands over to the side, loosening them just enough for palm to find palm. She felt a brief flicker of hesitation when she pushed her fingers between Blake’s, but it vanished when she felt Blake’s hand tighten and shift closer in response. A sweet shiver rushed through her heart.

“It’s my fault you got hurt,” Blake said. “I made you trigger the rock slide. You pushed me out of the way and now…If it hadn’t been for me—”

“Hey, don’t think like that,” Yang said. “It’s not your fault.”

    Blake screwed her eyes shut, her mouth a twisted line. She shook her head, her shoulders slouching as though under a heavy burden. A pair of tears slid down her cheeks. Yang pulled her a little closer.

“Blake, look at me. If I had to do it again, I would’ve done the same thing.” Yang reached up and cupped her friend’s beautiful cheek, smudging one tear away with her thumb.

 “I would do anything for you,” she said, simply.

    All the tears Blake had stopped up inside came out at once. She didn’t make any noise, but Yang thought she could detect a series of tremors rattling underneath the smooth hand wrapped up in her own. She could hear it in the rattle of Blake’s chest as she breathed; well, tried to breathe, as best she could through the sobs threatening to erupt from her throat.

“Blake…”

“I’m just so happy you’re alright.” She whispered. A fire blazed in Yang’s chest. Blake leaned into her touch.

    Yang didn’t think before she kissed her; the only thing she had wanted was to take away some of her dear friend’s pain. She felt how soft Blake’s lips were, felt them quiver and press against her own; it was a hesitant and sweet kiss, and her heart turned over in her chest with the feeling of it. It felt like that night in the gymnasium, tangled up in each other; safe, like a secret tucked into the corner of your heart. Yang kissed her again, and it was just as slow and sweet and soft. Her fingers brushed through the long black hair near the curve of Blake’s jaw, and she felt a shiver travel down the other girl’s neck. A stray tear dribbled down her friend’s cheek, so she kissed it away, lips hot against the cool flesh. When they parted, Blake still hadn’t opened her eyes, her face a pink stain of blush. She shook with each new breath, her face twisted in confusion. Yang felt a stab of concern pierce her stomach.

“…Was that okay?” Yang asked.

“I…” Blake’s eyes opened, alight with unease. She took a few steps back. Yang’s heart sank with guilt.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think about what I was doing.”

“Don’t be sorry, Yang,” She replied, swiping away the other tears on her face. “Emotions are...running high right now. For both of us.”

She fumbled for something to say.

“Shit, Blake, I’m sorry. It’s—it’s the painkillers. They make me loopy and I—”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Blake said. “It wasn’t…it was fine. You’re fine.”

“Oh. Uh, okay.”

Any conversation they could have had up to this point had now been dashed. Yang felt anxiety rip through her chest. Silence hung in the air, thick and oppressive.

“I get robot knees!” She blurted.

“Huh?”

“I get robot knees! Cybernetics! They don’t have to take my legs. I wanted to tell you.” Blake relaxed, though her blush hadn’t faded.

“I’m out of action for weeks, though. Like, sixteen weeks. Recovery time and stuff.”

“Oh, I see. That’s why you were joking about getting fat.”

“Yeah, that’s the reason why.”

The conversation died again. Blake’s eyes nervously swept the room. _Think of something to say, Yang! You idiot!_ Yang thought.

“I missed you last night,” Blake began. She grimaced, like she said something regretful.

“Oh?”

“I woke up and realized you weren’t in the bunk above me. It was too quiet. There weren’t any snores.”

“Oh.”

More silence, but the tension had gone out of the air a little bit. Guilt coursed through her blood until it vibrated against Yang’s skin.

 Blake backed up a few steps. “I should let you rest. I’ll be back again later.”

“Sure, of course,” Yang started, but Blake was already out the door.

 

    Down the hallway Blake stopped and collapsed against a wall, glad there was no one to witness her sudden lack of wits. Her skin felt humid underneath her clothes. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She brushed two fingers over her mouth, marveling at the scorching heat still tingling there.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

    They never talked about their kisses in the hospital; there was too much uncertainty to make any judgments about what it meant for them. Blake tried to focus on the concrete things she knew: Yang was three weeks into recovery now, her cybernetic implants finally adjusting to her strong immune system, her new physical therapy routine arduous but progressing as well as anyone could hope. Yang was positive as usual, and for once her grades held up out of effort rather than sheer luck. She still didn’t sleep well at night, because a painful stiffness set into her joints after a few hours and the braces on her legs were bulky, but she was improving. The autumn’s unusual warmth had almost gone, and a wintry draft often seeped into the dorms. Yang often joked that Blake should join her at night to share heat in that nest of blankets she called a bed.

“You’re an ice cube and you’ve been taking care of me for weeks,” she said. “The least I can do is keep you warm.”

    Blake couldn’t be sure if she was joking or not. She didn’t think that she was, but it was so hard to tell. She was afraid to ask. Ever since she had pulled away from Yang in surprise at the hospital her partner’s suggestive comments were few and far between; she got the distinct impression that Yang had taken her withdrawal to be a sign of rejection, so she was backing off and giving her space. It was strange to lose all those touches to her shoulder and face and hair; it was almost like her partner would rather tie her own hands together rather than cause offense. Blake wanted to apologize, to clear the air, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t even sure of what she wanted herself, or what anything she felt meant.

    Blake didn’t know what to think about her own feelings. It wasn’t that they were unpleasant or unwelcome, but they were new, and they were intimate in a way that hadn’t been replicated before. She had experienced her fair share of passion: on occasion she and Adam had kissed after missions, breathless with adrenaline and danger, but that had been more of a release than an enduring bond. She had never wanted to sleep with him, in a sexual way or otherwise. They couldn’t hold a conversation beyond the scope of the White Fang. Sun was her friend, and she enjoyed his company, but she didn’t think of him that way. Yang was different. Yang brought out feelings in her that kept her awake at night and kept her attention during the day. Until the accident, she thought she had plenty of time to understand their relationship, but knowing how Yang could have died in an instant, and how she could have lost the chance to be with her…it made her reconsider her reservations. Especially as she began to notice the various couples on campus.

    Jaune and Pyrrha were quiet when they made love, but Blake could still hear them. She wished she couldn’t, but there was only so much she could do to block her keen hearing, so she often caught the low laughter and breathy moans that signaled love being proven every time Nora and Ren were out of the room. Tonight, on a drizzling Friday with most of Beacon out on the town, Blake and Yang both flinched at the more…passionate noises emanating from across the hall.

“I have to hand it to Jaune; I never would’ve guessed he had the stamina to keep up with Pyrrha.” Yang said from the edge of her bed, her lip curled in discomfort.

“He does have a strong aura, so that usually means a lot of energy. I wish they would keep the noise down, though.”

    Yang opened her mouth as if to say something, but thought better of it. Instead, she stretched her legs out across her mattress, sighed, and rubbed the back of her neck.

“Well, at least they love each other.” Yang said, without humor.

    Blake thought Yang smiled less these last few weeks. When Yang looked at herself in the mirror, her eyes never fled from the scar slashed under one corner of her mouth, but she never wanted to look at herself much either. It was the same with her knees, crisscrossed with pink scar tissue and locked in braces as they were. She acknowledged them and was grateful for them, but she hadn’t gotten over the cosmetic scarring yet. They had been working on that together, like they had in all aspects of her rehabilitation. It wasn’t just that, though. She tried to joke and laugh like usual, but Yang was…down. It was easy to see, and Blake’s fault. It was because she never talked to Yang about that morning in the hospital.

    Blake put down her book and sat on Yang’s bed, easing up behind her. Yang didn’t pay her any attention until she reached out and gathered fistfuls of thick blonde hair in her hands.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Braiding your hair.” She replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Since when do you do that?”

“Since you look sad.”

    Yang’s hair was still a tiny bit damp from the shower she had taken an hour ago. The outer edge had a roughness to it, like the hair of a wild animal, but the layers underneath were thick and soft. Blake gathered the wavy locks into three separate columns. She combed her fingers through them, straightening as many cowlicks as she could, teasing apart tiny knots and clusters till they were as smooth and even as they could be. Then, she began to weave them together, gentle and slow. It was a loose braid, but a pretty one. She layered each column into the whole and swept it over Yang’s defined shoulder, making sure to brush the long golden bangs behind the ears. Yang stared at the sheets.

“I don’t think you’ve ever done my hair before.” She said quietly. “It’s nice.”

“Oh?”

“You have a soft touch.”

    Blake remembered how tender Yang’s kisses had been that day in the hospital; she had kissed her so carefully, as though she were mindful of the overwhelming strength of her passion. She touched the back of Yang’s neck, nestling her fingers into the warm, soft down of her nape. Their kisses that day had been warm and sweet and unexpected, like a spring shower in the forest. She had been afraid then, unprepared, but now… Blake slid both hands down around Yang’s stomach, her cheek pressed into the broad plane of her friend’s shoulder blade. Yang smelled like almond soap warmed over in a fire; she could almost taste a hint of flame about her. She felt the other girl’s pulse quicken under her skin. She thought about Jaune and Pyrrha, about how they made love across the hall. Did she want that with Yang, someday?

_I do_ , she thought.

    Yang’s body radiated heat. The two of them sat unmoving, warm and still, the only sound that of the rain now pattering against the window. Yang looked over her shoulder, uncertain.

“Blake?” She asked. “What is it?”

    Blake kissed her the way she had often imagined before she fell into sleep; she leaned in and touched their lips together just enough to savor the heat of the open, unsuspecting mouth against her own. The contact was gentle, as it had been that day weeks ago, but lovelier; she sank into it without hesitation.

    Yang deepened the kiss further in response, sliding a hand through the dark curtain of Blake’s hair. Her scalp tingled electric at the touch. They were the best kisses she had ever had. They were different than before; there was a new hunger to each of them, and a joy—they were still soft, still warm, but there was an energy that hummed and built between the two of them as their lips met a second time, and then a third. Weeks of silence and apprehension melted in each other’s mouths, the two of them never talking, instead speaking with the sweet pressure of their lips and tongues and hands caressing each other as if in a fever. It was strange, to feel the rightness of it all the way down to the core of her being, but it felt like home.

After some time, they parted, lips swollen and dewy. The rain rattled the window, heavier this late in the evening. Yang laughed breathlessly, raking a hand through her bangs.

“Does this mean you’ve forgiven me for kissing you without asking?”

Blake took Yang’s hand and kissed every fingertip in turn. She held the hand to her chest, the boom of her heart echoing through her ribs.

“I didn’t mind when you kissed me. I was surprised, but I didn’t mind at all.” She said. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes.”

“My heart’s beating like that for you, Yang. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I…haven’t felt this way about anyone before. I guess…I was scared of what could happen, you know? It felt so new, I didn’t know what I should do about it. But I won’t make the mistake of waiting again, not when I almost lost you. I…I want to be with you. If you’ll have me.”

“Blake, I…” Yang grinned, her eyes lustrous with delight. “I’m so happy you feel that way.” She pulled her into a tight hug. “Aww, I feel like I could just explode!” She squealed. Blake winced at the tightness of their embrace. Yang loosened herself, holding Blake’s hands instead. “Sorry, didn’t mean to crush you! You okay?” She asked.

“I’m fine. So, I’ve never done this before. Date anyone, I mean.”

Yang shrugged. “Neither have I. I guess we’ll have to figure it out together. I think it’s kind of the same as the way we were before; you know, always being around each other.”

“Except now we kiss, too.”

Blake smiled. Yang smiled back.

“Yeah, now we kiss, too.”  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

 

    Twelve weeks into Yang’s recovery, she got to take the braces off and walk unassisted all the time. Blake said a part of her missed carrying Yang’s books and helping her get into bed at night, but she also said it was good to see the spring return to her girlfriend’s step. The scars were thick and puffy across Yang’s knees and shins, but she didn’t shy away from looking at them anymore—they were a part of her now, like the scar under her mouth that turned into a silver the same color as fish scales in the sunlight. Blake touched that scar sometimes, in quiet moments after class or before they fell asleep at night; she traced her index finger along it or pressed a kiss to it in the morning before she got up to start the day. She said it gave Yang a ruggedness to her beauty that hadn’t been there before.

“It’s not a bad thing, Yang.” She said. “It adds character.”

Yang thought Blake could find the beauty in anything, and she was glad.

    Lately, she herself had fallen in love with touching Blake’s ears. Although the black silk bow still graced her girlfriend’s head during the day, she would let Yang touch them when the two of them were alone, and they were delightful. Thin, delicate, and soft, those cat ears were pleasurable to stroke or to scratch behind, the later reducing Blake to a groaning slump in her arms. Yang felt a deep happiness then, slow and secure, heavy as sleep and just as comforting.

    Ruby and Weiss would’ve figured it out fast enough on their own, but Yang and Blake told them the morning after they started dating. Weiss took it in stride after a thoughtful glance at the two of them, her gaze approving. Ruby congratulated the two of them, as if she had expected it for a while; perhaps she had, Yang thought. Ruby was perceptive at times. The news hadn’t changed anything about their team dynamic in a negative way, even when the two of them had little fights over nothing, as young couples often did. They were doing a good job of keeping their professional roles apart from their personal ones.

    The only downside to dating her teammate was that it was hard to spend time with each other in complete privacy. RWBY had always been glued together by their devotion to team bonding, but as it stood now, never having time alone with Blake was annoying as hell— especially when she kept looking at Yang over the others’ shoulders, her gaze part smoldering and hungry, another part kind and sweet. Whenever they had a spare moment they would steal kisses, and it became quite clear how ready the both of them were to sleep with each other. It felt hotter when they kissed, and they often had to fix their clothes afterwards, tucking and re-buttoning and straightening articles pulled loose by their wandering hands, aware of what they both wanted and hesitant to take that final step.

    The thought of losing her virginity to Blake filled Yang with a sense of pleasant dread. She had made out with people as a young teenager on Patch, but that had been for fun, and hadn’t progressed beyond that—she had gotten the awkward teeth clicking, the too-much tongue, and the weird body positioning out of the way with those kisses; they had never caused the wet, hot ache between her legs the way kissing Blake did.  The complete and utter need she felt astounded her.

    She didn’t know how experienced Blake was (and it wasn’t her business unless that information was volunteered), but she knew she wanted the first time they made love to be satisfying. Perhaps satisfying was the wrong word, she thought. Fulfilling. That felt like a better word, like it matched what she felt inside—like an unspoken vow to love Blake the best she could, in whatever way she could. The first time they touched each other like that, Yang wanted to keep that promise.

    That was why tonight was so important. It was a Saturday evening, cold and muted with snowfall. Yang had asked Ruby and Weiss to go out for dinner and a movie in Vale, and it didn’t take any hinting for them to know exactly why she had asked. She would be hard-pressed to create a more awkward moment with her kid sister than the second Ruby’s face turned lobster-red and she pointed an accusing finger and stammered, “You’re totally going to do it!” Yang shuddered at the memory. Still, all embarrassment aside, they would be gone for hours now, and that was more than enough time for her to prove to Blake how much she loved her.

    In the shower that evening, she scrubbed herself pink and washed her hair twice. She brushed her teeth after dinner and again while toweling off in the bathroom. Her nails were clean and clipped, her body moisturized with lotion. She looked at herself naked in the mirror, cleaned to perfection, still fit and strong in spite of her recovery, and fought the tremor of nerves bouncing under her skin. She forced a smile at her reflection. _It’s just performance anxiety, Yang_ , She told herself. _Don’t think about you. Think about her. It’s all about her tonight._

Blake was reading when Yang got out of the bathroom, stretched out along her bed on her stomach. She looked up and smiled.

“Feel better?” She asked. Yang had a perfect view of her cleavage. God, she was gorgeous.

“Y-yup.” She said. She pointed at the book. “Is that one of your trashy romance novels?”

“Hardly.” Blake rolled her eyes. “It’s a book I haven’t picked up for a while. I was reading it the day you got hurt, and I’m just now getting back to it.” She nodded to the space beside her. “Sit with me. I’m almost done with this chapter.”

    Yang laid down on her back, hands folded over her stomach. Blake swung an ankle over hers, their shins nestled against each other. She turned a page.

“Where are Weiss and Ruby tonight?” She asked.

“Dinner in town. They’re seeing that new Cal Learick movie, too. The one about the casino heists.”

“Hmm.”

    Yang brushed a finger down Blake’s arm, pleased at the trail of goose bumps she summoned. She watched her girlfriend’s amber eyes race across the page, intent and driven. She could watch Blake read for hours, absorbed in her focus. She glanced at the book’s cover; the silhouettes of two women with linked hands ran down a foggy, wooded street, a sinister figure perched at the other end. The title, _Deception Under Nightvale_ , topped the front cover in raised silver lettering.

“What’s your book about?” She asked. Blake frowned.

“It’s a thriller, so the plot’s a bit too much to summarize in only a few words, but…I guess you could say it’s about a woman who finds out her brother is a serial killer, and she has to protect his next victim without letting him know she’s on to him.”

“Sounds intense.”

“It is.” Blake closed the book and looked at her, eyes wide and serious. “You know I love books, right?”

“In other news: water wet, sky blue.”

“Well, other than romance, thrillers are my favorite. And right now, the sister is trapped in a burning root cellar, and the woman she’s protecting is hacking away with the door with this ax, but the killer is behind her, so he might attack her while she’s trying to help. I’m worried she’s going to die.”

Yang laughed. “You are the cutest bookworm I have ever dated.”

“I’m the _only_ person you’ve ever dated.”

“True.” She pressed a hand to Blake’s cheek. Blake closed her eyes, content. The room was quiet, the blankets underneath them warm and soft.

_Now. Tell her now._

“I love you.” Blake murmured. A slow smile grew across Yang’s face.

“I was just about to say that.” She said. “I love you, too.”

    When they started to kiss, Yang thought she might have an idea of how the night could progress; she imagined how she could to undress her girlfriend, and how she could arouse her and pleasure her in every way she read about in preparation for tonight. She thought about all the things she hoped she could tell her: how beautiful she was, how much she wanted her, how excited she made her, all the truths she had felt in the core of her being over these last few months and more, culminating in the shared heat of their entwined bodies. There was so much Yang wanted to do for her. She thought Blake might feel the same way; their kisses grew desperate with longing.

    Blake shifted onto her back, one hand entwined with Yang’s above her head on the mattress, the urgent press of Yang’s knee between her legs causing a rush of throbbing heat there. Her free hand wandered over the corded muscle of the body above her, her fingers mapping every curve and hard line. She skated her hand under the loose cotton shirt to grasp Yang’s breast. It was a gentle touch, but it stoked a fire in Yang’s stomach. She groaned into Blake’s ear.

“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

    Blake didn’t reply, but her kiss spoke for her. Yang’s heart flipped with the passion of it. She pulled apart the bow of the kimono, hands soft over Blake’s body; the fabric fell open, unfolding across smooth, white skin like a flower opening to spring, effortless. Blake gasped at the hot press of Yang’s hand dipping under the silk to caress her stomach. When Yang’s fingers brushed across the plane of her pelvis, though, Blake held her wrist. She broke off their kiss, touching their foreheads together.

“Wait,” She said. “What about you?” Yang blinked.

“Kind of planning on making it all about you tonight, kitten.”

“Let me,” She said, peppering Yang’s face with kisses. “You’re always the brave one, the one who goes first. This time, let me take care of you.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to.”

“I want to. Please, Yang. I want to touch you.” Yang couldn’t refuse her. Not when she looked at her like that.

“…What do you want me to do?” Blake pushed a hand under the waistband of Yang’s sweatpants, stroking her hip.

“Take these off. Take everything off.”

    Yang peeled away her clothes with slow precision. Her pulse raced, yet she felt calm despite it; she had never taken her clothes off in front of another person, not since she had grown too old to share a bath with her sister, but it felt right in front of Blake. Her shirt and bra came away first, dropped to the floor, her pajama pants and underwear soon after. Blake’s hand stayed steady at her hip, comforting and arousing at the same time. Completely bare now, Yang kneeled on the bed, weight back on her heels, and shivered, but not from the temperature. Blake sat up too, her kimono open and askew. She took one of Yang’s hands, kissed the palm, and placed it on her breast. The weight of it sat warm and heavy in Yang’s grasp. She brushed her thumb across the small, pert nipple, and felt another spike of warmth ripple through her.

“You feel so good,” She said.

    Her face was so hot, she must be completely flushed. Blake wrapped a hand around her neck and pulled her in for another searing kiss. She guided Yang down to the bed, cradling Yang’s neck in her elbow as they settled. Blake’s fingers slid along the inside of her thigh until they settled next to the source of all that warmth pulsing between her legs. Gently, and carefully, she pressed her fingers against that heat and wetness. Yang shuddered. Blake whispered into her ear.

“You feel better.” She kissed her neck. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” A shiver rolled through her. “Yeah, it feels nice.”

     As Blake stroked her there, Yang was torn between the growing need to kiss the woman she loved and express the immense pleasure she was making her feel. Every tender glide and dip of those soft fingers made her moan. She wove her fingers into Blake’s hair and pulled her closer with her other arm, kissing her at every opportunity. After a while, after she got used to being touched, Blake penetrated her. Yang thought it was impossible for them to feel any closer, but she was wrong; the way her girlfriend could pull sensation out of her with just her hand was astonishing. When Blake began to press into her with two fingers at the same time she brushed the bundle of nerves sparking in her clitoris, a wave of tension began to build from their connection. Yang gasped at the rapid escalation rippling through her body.

“Blake,” She panted, “Blake.”

    A sudden clench of pleasure spasmed through her sex. It was small and fast, like the squeeze of a fist. Then came another, small and fast. Blake felt the change in her partner, pushing faster and deeper inside of her. Yang felt another clench inside, stronger now, a firm flex of muscle. It happened again, and again, each one more urgent and powerful than the last. She cried out, pulling Blake close. Another clench swept through her, and another, and after the third the force of her orgasm ripped through every muscle there, flaring in one exhausting contraction. She felt herself squeezing around the fingers still inside her, hanging onto Blake as if she were lost at sea. Blake held her tight.

“I’ve got you,” She said, mouth pressed against Yang’s cheek as she rode out the tremors.

    When Yang got her breath back, a sudden need to sleep poleaxed her. She struggled to fight it, but she felt the strings of unconsciousness hook into her brain, pulling her away. She opened her eyes, and kissed Blake as hard as she could.

 “That was amazing.” She said. “That may be the best thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life. I just want you to know that I have to get up, or I’m going to fall asleep.”

“It’s okay, you’re tired. Get some rest.”

“No, I want t—”

    Yang, her senses dulled from climax, sat up fast and hit her head hard on the slats of their bunk bed’s frame. Blake grimaced at the sound. Yang clasped her head, her face screwed in pain.

“GOD _DAMMIT_!” She groaned. “MOTHER _FUCKER_!”

    Something about all that had happened; their friendship, the accident, Yang swearing and the two of them together now, naked and in love, broke a dam loose in Blake. Yang saw it well up somewhere in her chest and radiate from there, her abdomen quivering with force, until laughter bubbled from her lips and she shook with the power of it. Yang stared at her in amazement. She had never seen Blake laugh so much in her life. Tears began to squeeze out of her girlfriend’s eyes as she giggled, and sure enough, Yang began to laugh as well. They cackled with the sheer humor of what had just happened. When the fit had passed, they collapsed, exhausted, hands linked across the sheets.

“Are you okay?” Blake finally asked.

“Yeah,” Yang said. “That killed the mood, though.”

“It’s okay,” Blake murmured. She pulled Yang’s arm around her. Yang cradled her close, kissing her on the forehead. “We have all the time in the world.”

“Yeah.”

“I love you, Yang.”

“I love you, too. For always.”  
  
Always.  


**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written fanfiction since high school, so I hope it's entertaining. I never imagined I would write for the RWBY fandom, but something about this pairing stuck with me. Please forgive my small formatting errors; this system is new to me. I hope you all enjoy it!


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